Machine and equipment assets, generally, are engineered to perform particular tasks as part of a business process. For example, assets can include, among other things and without limitation, industrial manufacturing equipment on a production line, drilling equipment for use in mining operations, wind turbines that generate electricity on a wind farm, transportation vehicles such as trains and aircraft, and the like. As another example, assets may include devices that aid in diagnosing patients such as imaging devices (e.g., X-ray or MRI systems), monitoring equipment, and the like. The design and implementation of these assets often takes into account both the physics of the task at hand, as well as the environment in which such assets are configured to operate.
Low-level software and hardware-based controllers have long been used to drive machine and equipment assets. However, the rise of inexpensive cloud computing, increasing sensor capabilities, and decreasing sensor costs, as well as the proliferation of mobile technologies have created opportunities for creating novel industrial and healthcare based assets with improved sensing technology and which are capable of transmitting data that can then be distributed throughout a network. As a consequence, there are new opportunities to enhance the business value of some assets through the use of novel industrial-focused hardware and software.
A locomotive (also referred to as an engine) provides motive power to push and pull rail cars holding cargo such as freight, passengers, and the like. The life of a locomotive can span forty years or more and requires continuous upkeep. Railroads are always under pressure to improve operating efficiency, enhance locomotive reliability, and control cost of locomotives. One of the biggest expenditures is in the maintenance and upkeep of locomotives. Unplanned maintenance activity, such as road failures, can be significantly more expensive to address than planned maintenance activity. To make matters worse, while the locomotive is being repaired, the locomotive is unavailable resulting in lost revenue.
A road failure event typically prevents a locomotive from reaching its final destination. Instead, the locomotive is transported from the point of failure to a workshop where it can be evaluated and fixed before being placed back into operation. It is estimated that more than 40,000 road failures occur each year. Identifying a root cause of a road failure event can help prevent them from happening in the future. Troubleshooting and identifying a root cause of a failure is typically performed by a subject matter expert on locomotives such as a fleet program manager. The expert reviews the information around the failure event, repair logs, maintenance notes, and other information, and provides a “best-guess” as to the cause of the failure. However, there are hundreds of factors that can cause a road failure. As a result, two experts reviewing the same information often come to different conclusions.